Model-Based Decision Support Tools at Jugos S.A. Concentrated Fruit Juice Plant

BLANCO ANÍBAL; MORENO SUSANA; TARABORELLI CAROLINA; D'ANGELO FLAVIO; ITURMENDI FACUNDO; BANDONI ALBERTO

INTERFACES

INFORMS

Año: 2020

0092-2102

We describe the development of a decision-support tool to assist in the operations of a large concentrated apple and pear juice plant. The tool?s objective is to generatedetailed schedules of clarified juice batches to be produced in the following weeks considering incoming fruit forecasts, commercial commitments, and infrastructural constraints. The tool is based on two interactive modules, PLANNER and SIMOPT, withdifferent and complementary purposes. Each module is based on mixed-integer modelswith specific inputs, outputs, and user interfaces. PLANNER consists of three submodules:(i) planning assigns a batch of concentrated juice to be produced on a specific day, takinginto account cleaning activities, rest days, raw material availability, and production andstorage constraints; (ii) preprocessing organizes juice orders in batches; and (iii) poolingprovides a detailed monitoring of semielaborated juice in storage pools in terms of inventories and sugar and acid content. Finally, SIMOPT provides a detailed optimal operative condition of the plant together with a thorough calculation of specific costs. Thisinformation is used by PLANNER to evaluate the corresponding economic objectivefunctions. Besides providing optimal target conditions to the plant and feasible productionschedules, the developed tools generate production guidelines in the long term and allowperforming scenario studies.